


how to train your superhuman quasi-son

by nasa



Series: inheritance [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Grieving, M/M, Other, brief use of homophobic slurs, mentions of attempted sexual assault (not on Peter), mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 05:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13606968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: In which Peter sits on rooftops, Tony talks about thermodynamics, and Aunt May bakes cake.Or: the post-Homecoming, pre-Infinity War story about how Peter and Tony’s relationship evolves from awkward friends to adopted family (without any actual adoption being involved).





	how to train your superhuman quasi-son

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Peter & Tony BB, so accompanied by some lovely, lovely artwork by the incredibly talented natalie over at hereandnowwearealive.tumblr.com. 
> 
> link to art can be found here: https://hereandnowwearealive.tumblr.com/post/170653781208/mornin-tony-mumbles-brushing-his-hand-along ; https://hereandnowwearealive.tumblr.com/post/170653797662/kid-tony-says-and-peter-leans-forward-before

When he was younger, Peter’s mother used to call him her special boy. 

On cold winter nights in their dingy living room, the TV playing low in the background:  _ Come here, my special boy,  _ she’d say, and he’d clamber into her lap for a story. Or on sunny afternoons, when all the other kids were outside stubbing their barefoot on hot pavement, and Peter was sprawled across the floors of his father’s office, reading a book:  _ my little special boy, don’t you want to go outside?  _ Or when he’d come home from school, head down, cheeks red, lips bitten:  _ oh, my special boy, did someone say something to you?  _ And she’d tuck him into her arms and kiss his forehead and his ears and his nose and they’d watch Star Trek or talk about science and it would make him forget, for a little while, what the boys at school had sounded like as they’d laughed at him, his sneakers, the book he brought in for show and tell,  _ you’re such a nerd. _

Peter never thought he was special, but his mother did, and he’s spent his whole life trying to prove her right. So when Tony Stark showed up at his apartment and asked him to go to Berlin, he said yes without a second thought. Even after he heard what happened to Colonel Rhodes. Even after they refuse to give him missions for four months. Even after he gets bruised and bloodied taking down an invisible airplane because nobody would listen when he said something was wrong.

Really, Peter doesn’t think twice until Tony’s got an arm around his shoulder, smiling down at him, ready to give him a shiny new suit and a space at the compound and the life Peter always dreamed of, right up until now.

“I’d rather just stay on the ground for a little while,” he says. “Friendly, neighborhood Spiderman. Somebody’s gotta look out for the little guy, right?”

The next night, he’s on patrol in Queens when he hears a girl sobbing. He finds her in the alley behind a Lebanese restaurant, a burly middle-aged man pressed up against her, one hand down her jeans, the other covering her mouth.

It might be stupid, but as Peter rubs her back and tells her it’ll be okay, he remembers the nice old lady who had given him a churro, and thinks that maybe this can be just as special as saving the world.

-

It’s remarkable, life’s capacity for self-correction: one minute Peter’s laying in the sand surrounded by the burning wreckage of priceless artifacts, and the next, he’s back in school, going to Chem and Lit and Decathalon practices where MJ hounds him every time he takes more than half a second to buzz in. It’s busy, between his classes and his extracurriculars and his  _ extracurriculars,  _ but it’s good. It feels like he’s accomplishing something.

(May almost kills him when she finds him in the suit. It takes a lot of begging and pleading and, Peter suspects, a few very long phone calls with Happy behind his back, before she agrees not to take away everything he owns and lock him in a padded white room for the rest of his life.

She does take his laptop away, for “at least a month but possibly forever”, but on the whole, Peter made it out with more than he had expected, so he’s not complaining.) 

Three weeks after Peter turns down a spot on the Avengers, he leaves Decathalon practice on a Friday to find Happy leaning against an expensive-looking car in the parking lot.

“Um,” he says, jogging ahead of Ned and MJ to meet him. “You know you’re parked in a handicapped space, right?”

Happy stares at him.

“Right, nevermind, um - what are you, uh, doing here? Exactly?”

“Picking up you,” Happy says. “You free?” He waves a hand before Peter can say anything. “Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical, Tony’s got your schedule, he knows when you are and aren’t free - hop in, we’re going upstate.”

“Um,” Peter says again, as Happy pops open the back door. Happy raises an eyebrow at him. “I mean, I’d love to, but I have to call Aunt May -“

“Already done,” Happy says, “Tony got this pre-approved - come on, kid, you’re burning daylight here -“

“Right, right, of course, sorry,” Peter says without moving, “it’s just that, you know, if this is a mission of some sort - you know, I’m flattered, of course, but when I said friendly neighborhood -“

Happy squints at him. “What? No. This is training. At the facility. For the weekend.”

“Oh!” Peter says. “Oh. Training, right, um - good. Great!”

“Ready to go now _?” _

Peter nods hurriedly, tossing his backpack into the backseat and clambering in after it. “Yeah, right, of course, sorry - about, that -“

To his surprise, Happy just shrugs. “Whatever, kid,” he says, shutting Peter’s door behind him.

Through the tinted glass, Peter can see Ned and MJ, both watching the car. Ned’s expression is one of childhood glee; MJ looks more suspicious. Peter makes a mental note to try to be more - normal around her. 

He’s not sure how effective it’ll be, but he’ll give it a shot.

“So, uh, training,” Peter says, as Happy pulls away from the curb. “What does that, um, constitute exactly? Like, who am I gonna - train with?”

Happy doesn’t look at him, but when he speaks, he doesn’t sound annoyed, either. “Well, the boss is there, obviously,” he says, flicking on his turn signal. “War Machine was supposed to be involved but he had to go out of town last minute. Vision’s there though - have you met him yet?”

“Uh, not really,” Peter says, “I mean, there was, like, a minute, in Germany - but then Colonel Rhodes got hurt, and you came to get me -“

“Right,” Happy interrupts, “word of advice, kid - don’t talk to Tony about Germany.”

“Um,” Peter says.

“Nothing against you, nobody warned you - but he doesn’t - it wasn’t a great time for him, you know? Especially -  _ especially _ anything about Rhodes.”

Peter waits, thinking maybe he’ll get an explanation, but there’s nothing. “Um, okay,” he says finally. Happy nods a bit, and is opening his mouth to say something else when his phone rings.

“One sec, kid,” he says, reaching up to press a button on his bluetooth. “Ms. Potts,” he says, voice warm, “How’s L.A.?” Peter takes the hint, and pulls out his calc homework.

The rest of the car ride is quiet but productive; by the time they pull up in front of the Compound, Peter’s finished most of his math work for the weekend, and is even halfway done with his Lit essay, and that’s just bullshitting stuff anyway.

Happy’s on the phone again - some government official or something, Peter didn’t hear a name - but he points to the door and mouths,  _ Go on,  _ so Peter does, hefting his backpack over his shoulder. He’s only been here once before, and he wonders, idly, if the place will get less impressive over time; so far, it seems unlikely.

The entrance hall is empty when he steps inside, and he pauses, wrong-footed. Happy had said to come inside, but he hadn’t said where -

“Mr. Parker,” a disembodied voice says, and Peter leaps half out of his skin. “Apologies for startling you,” it continues, as Peter searches for the source of the noise, “I assumed Boss would have mentioned me to you. My name is FRIDAY, I’m Mr. Stark’s Artificial Intelligence.”

“Artificial Intelligence _? _ ” Peter squeaks, because the only other alternative is immediately calling Ned to scream, or possibly swoon.

“I run the Compound, as well as Mr. Stark’s other residences, and I assist him in operating the Iron Man suits,” FRIDAY says, as though anticipating the questions Peter is too excited enough to ask. “I suppose you could say I am something like a sophisticated version of Karen, your own AI. Mr. Stark is in his workshop, but I informed him that you’re here, and he has instructed me to direct you to the kitchen. He says he’ll be up in a minute. Are you hungry?”

“ _ Um _ ,” is all Peter manages, because he’s still stuck on,  _ I’m Mr. Stark’s Artificial Intelligence,  _ but FRIDAY seems to take that as a yes, because a string of blinking yellow lights up along the baseboards.

“If you will just follow the yellow lights,” FRIDAY says, something like amusement coloring her tone and - Jesus, Jesus Christ, is Tony Stark’s AI making a joke about the Wizard of Oz? Ned is going to  _ flip. _

The kitchen is big and white and expensive-looking, with towering windows overlooking an expansive green field. Peter leaves his backpack on the countertop, then hesitates, moves to pull it back off.

“You hungry?” someone asks from behind him, and Peter spins to see Tony entering the room, wearing grimy old clothes and wiping his hands on an oily rag. He raps his knuckles on the fridge door as he passes it. “There’s leftover Chinese. And - apples, maybe. But definitely Chinese.”

“Oh, I’m fine Mr. Stark, thank you,” Peter says, even though it’s been a few hours since he’s last eaten, and with his new metabolism, that means he’s basically starving.

Tony doesn’t seem fooled, raising an eyebrow in Peter’s direction as he pulls out a couple takeout boxes of Chinese food. “Oh, I’m sure you’re not hungry at all,” he says dryly. “I mean mutant metabolism - that doesn’t burn any extra calories, does it?”

Peter’s stomach chooses that moment to grumble, and Peter shoots Tony a sheepish grin.

“Ok, maybe a bit hungry,” he says, then hastens to add, “but it’s fine, Mr. Stark, really, I don’t want to impose -“

“Kid,” Tony interrupts, shoving a takeout box in Peter’s direction. “I’m a billionaire. That’s billionaire with a ‘B’- I regularly fly around in a gold-titanium suit, I make expensive new toys for several governmental agencies, and I pretty much single-handedly funded the rebuilding of New York after 2012.” He pops a dumpling into his mouth and chews, regarding Peter with something like amusement over his food. “You really think a ten dollar carton of Chinese food is gonna bankrupt me?”

Peter’s cheeks warm. “Right,” he stammers, “right, of - of course, Mr. Stark, I - right.”

Tony eats another dumpling. “Go on,” he says after a moment of Peter not moving. He gestures towards the white carton with his chopsticks. “I didn’t get it for FRIDAY.”

“No,” the voice in the ceiling pipes up, as Peter breaks apart his wooden chopsticks, “you are not that considerate.”

“Oi,” Tony protests, but he’s grinning even as he turns back to his food. “How much homework you got?”

It takes Peter a moment to realize that Tony is speaking to him. “Um, not too much,” he manages around a mouthful of orange chicken. “I did most of it in the car.”

“Good,” Tony says, stuffing the last dumpling in his mouth and tossing his carton aside. “Bring that with you,” he says, and then he’s striding out of the room, leaving Peter to stumble after him, Chinese food in hand.

“So I feel like I should give you the grand tour, but you’ve also already seen, like, half of this, and also I don’t think your greatest concern is architecture so, greatest hits. This is the common area, the bedrooms are that way,” Tony makes a vague hand gesture to his left, “and the training facilities are that way,” to the right this time. “There’s a Hulk room downstairs and a swimming pool in the backyard and really anything you could want, but what I think you might be more interested in is -  _ this.” _

Tony flings open a door, and Peter steps inside. A moment later, the lights flicker on fully, and then Peter is left blinking, stunned, wondering when someone invented a portal to the future.

“Welcome to my workshop,” Tony says, grinning, and Peter doesn’t even care that his expression is probably making him look stupid. It’s - Jesus, it’s so -  _ so - _

“I think you and I can have some fun down here.”

-

“- but obviously that much heat would roast my chest cavity like a Thanksgiving turkey, so I had to find a way around the Second Law of Thermodynamics -“

Peter nods quickly, scribbling along in his notebook. He’d pulled it out when Tony started talking about how the arc reactor functioned - after all, very few people got to hear about the suit from Tony himself, and he didn’t want to forget anything.

Tony had raised an eyebrow when Peter had pulled it out, asked if this was school now, and Peter had blurted out something about how this was  _ fifty times better than school, really, Mr. Stark, thank you so much for letting me come down here,  _ and Tony had waved him off before he could say anything even more embarrassing.

“-but anyway, I’m me, right, of course I can make it 100% efficient if I want it to, fuck Carnot, he’s from Paris, what did he know -“

“Um, sorry - who’s Carnot?”

Tony stops, looking affronted. “Who’s  _ Carnot?  _ Jesus, what kind of third-tier education are you getting here, kid?”

“Hey,” Peter protests, “my school’s good it’s just - I’m a freshman. And my focus is more biochem than advanced mechanics.”

“The Second Law of Thermodynamics is not advanced, this is rudimentary stuff -“

“Well, I know what the law  _ is,  _ I’m not completely uneducated, I just don’t know who  _ Carnot  _ is -“

“He came up with the law, or, well, not the law, the - the basic points of the law, that is, he did all the work and then Kelvin took all the credit, but it’s fine, it’s whatever - we need to get you some better textbooks, kid, maybe a few papers, I should get FRIDAY to order some for you, FRIDAY -”

Peter wants to press the point and ask whether Tony likes Carnot or dislikes him, because he’s getting mixed signals, but instead he drops it, and just says, “I do already have access to textbooks, you know.”

Tony waves a hand. “At the  _ library,”  _ he says. “Besides, I’m not sure if I’d trust you to pull the important bits out, I’m sure you’re read in chemistry about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and yet here you sit, unknowing of Carnot.” He pauses, squinting at Peter. “I’ll just have to teach you myself. Next time you come down, of course.”

“Right,” Peter says, trying to ignore the way his heart is suddenly beating very fast in his throat. “Are we - I mean, am I going to come up here a lot, then?”

“I mean, I’m not going to force you into anything,” Tony says, turning back to the hologram. “But I think it’d be a good idea, yeah. I know I kind of - shanghaied you here, but you need some hand to hand combat training. I know you’re strong, but there are other strong people out there - a couple times a month, here at the facility, we could get you some upgrade equipment, I could introduce you to Rhodey. Maybe a couple others, if they deign to drop by.” He pauses, glancing over his shoulder at Peter. The silence stretches a moment too long. “I mean, if you don’t want to-“

“Oh, no, of course I want to, that would be - awesome, Mr. Stark, really, thank you.”

Tony glances back down at the schematic in his hands. “Don’t thank me, kid,” he says. Peter can’t see his face, but his voice sounds strange. “I, um - I should be thanking you, really. I know I mentioned it, before - I know  _ Happy  _ mentioned it before - but you really did help out a lot with the whole Vulture thing -“

“Oh, it was nothing, Mr. Stark -“

“Shut up and let me talk, kid,” Tony interrupts, raising his eyebrows, and Peter quiets. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. For the way I - for the way things got delegated. I really do care, but I think some things got lost on the grapevine. Hopefully, we can stop that from happening again.”

Peter swallows hard. “Uh, yeah, that’d be - good.”

Tony nods, looking uncomfortable, and turns back to the schematic. “Right,” he says, “now that we’ve gotten  _ feelings  _ out of the way -“ he says the word like some would say  _ work,  _ or  _ anchovies,  _ or  _ chicken pox -  _ “we can focus back on your failed education, and how it’s going to be impossible for me to explain even the most basic aspects of the arc reactor to you until you get at minimum a college-level grasp on thermodynamics -“

“Boss,” FRIDAY, interrupts, even as Peter rolls his eyes, “Vision is requesting entrance to the workshop.”

Tony waves a hand, almost absently. “Let him in, Fry,” then turns to Peter, frowning, an afterthought. “Have you officially met Vision yet?”

“Not really,” Peter says, as the door behind him slides open and shut. He feels Vision’s presence in the room, can almost track his movements with his heightened senses.

“Mr. Stark,” Vision says, stepping up beside Peter. It’s strange, hearing someone else here call Tony ‘Mr. Stark’. Peter had assumed everyone was close enough friends that they’d be on a first name basis - but maybe, based on the way the address makes Tony frown just slightly, this is a new thing.

“Vision,” Tony greets, “You come to meet the resident spider-child?”

“Indeed,” Vision says, even as Peter frowns and opens his mouth to defend himself - he’s not a  _ child.  _ At least, he’s  _ barely  _ a child. “It is a pleasure, Mr. Parker. I apologize for not introducing myself in Germany, we were all quite - distracted.”

“Right,” Peter says, “No - no problem, man,” and then he shakes Vision’s hand - a hand made of a vibranium and titanium alloy, controlled by an android, who is one of the most powerful beings on the planet, because this is his life now.

“I have been informed that we are planning a training session later today?” Vision asks, glancing over at Tony.

“Right,” Tony says, giving him a strange smile. “Just you, me, and the kid, but I figured we could work something out. Rhodey left some drills, not that I don’t know them all already, of course.” He sniffs. “He seems to forget where he got his training.”

Vision cocks his head. “The U.S. military?” he asks innocently.

Tony squints at him. “Traitor. He learned everything he knows from me, and don’t you forget it.” Tony turns to swipe away the holograms, still grumbling. “One time - _ one time  _ he lets the army have access to my suit, and what happens? We almost get killed.  _ U.S. military  _ my ass -“

They end up in the gym fifteen minutes later, each of them suited up and ready. Peter can’t help but marvel at the room like he’s marveled at everything else here - the three-story ceilings, the gigantic sparring area, the punching bags and weights and treadmills that he’s sure are all designed to stand up to superhero strength.

“Lesson number one,” Tony says, flipping down his faceplate. “Always be on your guard.”

A second later, Peter is flat on his face on the ground, Vision’s knee on his back.

“Um,” Peter says to the floor. At least it’s a nice floor - less sweaty than the gym mats at school.

“Alright,” Tony says from somewhere behind him, and just as quickly as Peter was pinned, he’s suddenly free.

“That’s really impressive,” Peter says as he stands, shaking his limbs loose. “Is that, like, innate, or learned - how do you function with, like, that much speed, what kind of structure -“

“This is not about reverse-engineering Vision,” Tony interrupts. “This is about learning to defend yourself. Which you did not do. Again.”

Half a second later, Peter’s pinned again, this time with just the slightest bit more force.

“I’m starting to sense a pattern, here,” Peter mutters.

“Then perhaps you will learn to stop the pattern,” Vision says as he stands. He nods his head at Peter when he doesn’t get up. “Again.”

Vision manages to pin Peter three more times before Peter’s figures out how and when Vision is moving and ducks out of his grip. Even then, Vision immediately responds with a kick to the knee, which Peter moves to parry before he remembers he has to avoid direct kicks, and he waffles. His indecision lands him on his face, again, with a knee to the base of his spine.

“Again,” Vision says, rising, but this time Tony steps in, frowning at Peter.

“Why’d you stop?”

“What?”

“You were about to stop the kick but you changed your mind. Why’d you stop?”

“Um,”  _ because if I hit someone directly I could kill them.  _ “Um, force of habit.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Tony says, eyes widening in realization. “You still haven’t learned to control it, have you?”

“Um,” Peter says, feeling his face grow hot. He feels vaguely ashamed, even though, logically, he knows he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“No, it’s fine, I should have expected this, I just got used to dealing with super spies - God knows it took St-“ he cuts himself off, shakes his head. “It took the others a long time to get used to their strength, too, when they came into it.” Tony sighs and squints at him, almost evaluating. “We already have equipment that can hold up to your strength, but I’ll make some punching bags, something that can monitor the strength you put into it and feed it back, or - hm.” He takes a step back. “Vision, how accurate are you at estimating the strength put into a hit?”

“I would guess fairly accurate, but I have never needed to test the skill.”

“Well, let’s see, then. Peter, hit Vision as hard as you can.”

“Um.” Peter looks skeptical. “I mean, I don’t want to hurt him -“

“I am made of vibranium, Peter,” Vision reminds him. “You cannot hurt me.”

Peter blushes. “Right. Ok, um, so how do you want me to -“

“Jesus, just hit him, kid!” Tony barks and so, feeling awkward and uncomfortable and uncertain, Peter does.

The force of it sends Vision staggering backward, though he doesn’t fall. Peter’s hand aches where he hit him, but he think it hurts less than it would have if Vision hadn’t moved at all.

“That blow was comparable to a hit from Captain Rogers at full force,” Vision says. He cocks his head at Peter. “Perhaps stronger.”

“Jesus,” Tony says, blinking. “Okay, um, yeah, first order of business is getting that under control - Peter, try that again at, like, a normal strength. Like, what you imagine the strength of a regular really strong dude would be like.”

“Like, Strongman strong? Or like, average adult man who goes to the gym a couple of times a week and pretends to bench press more than he can strong?”

Tony huffs. “Hawkeye strong, how about that.”

Peter turns, squares himself, and punches.

Vision rocks backwards again. “This force is still much greater than that achievable by an average human, approximating 1,250 pounds of force.”

Tony clucks his tongue. “Let’s try it one more time.”

Eventually, Peter manages to get a punch that’s within the realm of non-mutant strength, but it feels strange, almost like he’s just tapping at someone instead of actively trying to stop them. He supposes it’s not dissimilar from everyday life, where he has to be careful not to squeeze doorknobs too hard or they’ll shatter, but it’s different nonetheless.

They run him through some more punches and a few kicks, and then Vision gives him an agility scheme for him to run through, Tony hovering above him in the Iron Man suit. Sometimes, he swoops down and tries to cut Peter off, and Peter has to dart out of the way to avoid him, twisting on his back like a cat to avoid snapping his neck.

It’s - nice. He goes through it once, twice, a dozen times, and by the end of it, his muscles are burning and his lungs are aching and he feels like he’s learned something new, even if that something is just that he’s not the only superhuman who doesn’t instinctively know how to control himself.

“Right, good work, kid,” Tony says, drifting to a halt beside him as he slumps on the mat, panting. “Few more hours of this, you might actually make some progress.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whines. He’s practically dripping sweat; in the time they’ve been in here, the sun has begun to sink outside, casting the room in an orange-purple glow.

“No, you’re not feeling it? It’s a shame, I had so much planned, so many drills - we’ve got a spout out back, you know, and I’ve always wondered how the itsy bitsy spider would do climbing up it -“

Peter groans, head flopping back. 

“Or, I suppose, if you wanna call uncle, we can quit.”

“Uncle,” Peter says without hesitation. Tony purses his lips.

“I really thought it was gonna take you longer than that,” he admits, and Peter rolls his eyes, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

“I’m starving,” he says. “When are we gonna eat?”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Tony says, “Only here for the food.” 

“I’m a growing boy,” Peter says, as he pushes himself, groaning, to his feet. He looks down at his t-shirt; it’s sweat-drenched and reeking. He wrinkles his nose. “But I need to shower first. Is there, like, a locker room or something?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “You can go shower there if you want - FRIDAY can show you where it is, it’s very high-school-football-fantasy, got the wide open mass community showers and everything, probably some stuff left in there by the S.H.I.E.L.D. minions - or you could go shower in your room.”

Peter’s eyes light up.

-

Peter’s room is  _ awesome.  _ There’s no other way to describe it - it’s every poor kid’s fantasy of what life as a rich kid must be like. There’s floor to ceiling windows, and a bed that probably costs more than Peter’s got in his bank account, and an ensuite bathroom with a  _ Jacuzzi,  _ not to mention the fact that the single room is bigger than May and Peter’s entire apartment

Peter’s bone-tired from training, so he showers, and then emerges just long enough to eat approximately a thousand tacos and an apple ( _ health,  _ Tony had said vaguely when Peter had raised his eyebrows). Then he just sort of crashes, barely taking the time to check his phone before he passes out on the soft, soft feather pillows.

He wakes up the next morning in the exact same position to sunlight pouring into the room.

“Urghnnnnn,” Peter says, into his pillow, or something like it. He should move so his face is out of the sunlight, but he’s too tired. “M’ it stop.”

“Rise and shine, Ichabod,” someone says behind him. For a moment, Peter is vaguely confused -  _ what happened to Aunt May’s voice -  _ before he remembers he’s upstate, and that voice belongs to Tony Stark, and he is laying on his bed in only his boxers.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter exclaims, startling out of the bed and onto the floor. He jumps up, then remembers he’s shirtless, and pulls the blankets off the bed to wrap them around his chest, feeling the back of his neck grow hot.

Tony just smirks at him. “I’ve been told you’re a growing boy, but it’s been twelve hours, and I got tired of waiting for you. Get dressed then come meet me in the workshop. We got things to do, robots to see, systems to code -”

“Right, um, let me just -“ Peter is saved from having to come up with something to say when Tony waves a hand and sweeps out of the room without saying anything else. Peter waits a moment to make sure he’s gone, before he huffs and drops onto the bed, putting his head in his hands.

“I am the most awkward person ever,” he tells his knees.

“Oh, that’s not true, Peter,” FRIDAY supplies helpfully from the ceiling. “According to my algorithms, it is highly likely there are individuals more awkward than you, even if I have never met any of them.”   


If Peter could facepalm twice, he would.

When he goes to get dressed he finds a clean t-shirt and jeans on the dresser that he hadn’t noticed the day before. He’s wary, but they’re just regular clothes - no embarrassing tourist t-shirts or taxi-patterned boxers.

In the workshop, he finds Tony’s ordered breakfast - there’s a bag of bagels sitting out on one of the workbenches, along with a tub of cream cheese and a container of lox. Peter’s stomach rumbles loudly as soon as he sets his sights on them, reminding him of how many calories he burned the day before; Tony doesn’t even glance up, just waves a hand in the direction of the food. Peter doesn’t need to be told twice.

Once Peter’s scarfed down two bagels and is working on the third (mutant metabolism - it’s both a blessing and a curse), he wanders over to where Tony is working on schematics for what looks like some sort of fighter jet.

“Is that the new quinjet?” Peter asks, and Tony hums absently, flipping something on the blueprint. “Can you fly it?”

“‘Course I can. I’m me.”

“Can you teach  _ me  _ to fly it?”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “And have Aunt May chew me out even more than she already has? No thanks.”

Peter freezes. “What?”

“What what?”

“What do you mean, she chewed you out? How did she even get in contact with you?”

Tony squints at him. “Wait, she didn’t tell you about this?”

“Um,  _ no,”  _ Peter says.

“It was after she found you in the suit - amateur move, by the way, gotta work on that - she called Happy and he rerouted her to me. Spent probably three hours on the phone with her trying to convince her you weren’t going to kill yourself doing something reckless, but, hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry,” he says finally. “I didn’t realize she had called you -“

Tony waves a hand. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it, I’ve been yelled at by scarier women in my life than her.”

“But -“

“Seriously, I should introduce you to Pepper, she’s really - actually, no, I take that back, I feel like that would result in fire and rumble an abundance of issues for me, anyway, let’s focus on the important thing, which is you.” He swipes the hologram away, looking Peter up and down. “We’ll make it work,” he mumbles, almost to himself. “FRIDAY’s gonna measure you, kid, go hop up on that platform.” He gestures towards a raised silver pedestal on the other side of the workshop.

“Um,” Peter says, looking down at his t-shirt and baggy jeans. “What do you need to measure me for?”

“New suit,” Tony calls over his shoulder as he heads towards his kitchenette. “I wanna be a bit more precise with it.”

“Are you getting rid of the auto-shrink?” Peter asks as he heads over.

“Nah, just a different material. FRIDAY’ll tell you what to do.”

Ten minutes later, Peter’s standing slumped on the platform, which turned out to be a turntable, in nothing but his t-shirt and underwear.

“I feel like this is unnecessary,” he calls to Tony, and Tony rolls his eyes without turning away from his holograms.

“Believe me, Underoos, I’m not really enjoying it either. This is more of you than I really wanted to see.”

Peter blushes and resists the urge to cover his crotch. It’s just boxers. They’re basically swim trunks.

“Please stand on only one leg,” FRIDAY asks, and Peter huffs.

“I’m pretty sure you’re just messing with me now,” he says, but acquiesces.

Dummy whirs inquisitively next to him, arm poking at Peter’s folded leg.

“Yeah, buddy,” Peter says. “I know.”

Behind him, Tony snorts.

“So you can’t teach me to fly the quinjet,” Peter says, as FRIDAY runs different lights around him. “What about other stuff? Like, can you teach me how to shoot a gun? Or  _ make  _ a gun? Ooh, can you teach me how to fly the suit?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter sees Tony pause, briefly, with what he’s working on, before resuming as if nothing happened. “You don’t want to know how to work a gun, kid,” he says. “It’s not really your style, and besides, where would you hide it in that spandex?”

“Good point,” Peter allows. “But I have always wanted to fly. How do you - I mean -”

“Historically, people who aren’t me in Iron Man suits don’t last very long,” Tony says lightly. From his tone he could almost be talking about the Iron Monger, but Peter wonders -

“Colonel Rhodes did,” Peter hears himself say.

This time Tony does pause, shoulders coming up to his ears. “He did,” he says. “Did being the kid word there, kid."   


Peter shrugs. “You can’t tell me he regrets it.”   


For a long moment, Tony doesn’t say anything. “Well,” he says finally, in a light tone that sounds forced, “I’m pretty sure you’re too young for a pilot’s license anyway. Maybe when you’re older.”

Tony looks tense and uncomfortable, and Peter kind of regrets bringing this up in the first place. “Can the Iron Man suit even be classified in the same way as a plane?” Peter asks, instead of pushing, or asking what he wants to ask, which is  _ why do you look like you’re the one who got hurt? _

“Actually, funny story about that,” Tony says, shoulders loosening slightly. “It’s really a high-end prosthetic, which I proved to the U.S. government and especially Senator Fuckface a few years ago, when -”   


Peter wants to ask questions, wants to know why Tony acts so strange sometimes, thinks maybe if he understood him better he could understand why Tony is so sure Peter can be better than him.

But for now, Tony’s relaxed, and working on a project, and Peter gets to see this incredible workshop, and that’s more than enough.

-

Sunday afternoon, Peter’s in the workshop explaining to Tony where he got the idea for his webbing when FRIDAY interrupts them.

“Excuse me, Mr. Parker, but Happy is here to take you home.”

Despite himself, Peter feels his heart sink.  _ It can’t be five already,  _ he thinks, but one glance at his phone shows that yeah, it is, and if he delays too long then Aunt May will be on him for being late.

Tony follows him to his room, standing in the doorway as Peter throws his suit and his dirty t-shirts in his backpack, then follows him out into the driveway where, sure enough, Happy is waiting.

Peter tosses his backpack in the car, then turns to where Tony is standing, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Well,” Tony says, after an awkward moment. “It was good to have you here, kid.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks, then realizes that sounded too needy, and quickly revises, “Not that I think you, like, need me here, or anything, it was - it was really nice, and really helpful, thank you so much for, for letting me visit and -“

“Kid,” Tony interrupts, and Peter stops. “I’ll see you two weekends from now, okay?” He waits until Peter nods, then continues, “In the meantime, call if you need anything.”

Peter pauses. “Um,” he says, and Tony raises his eyebrows at him. “I mean, I would, but I don’t exactly - have your number.”

“Right,” Tony says, reaching towards Peter, “right, of course, give it here.” Tony types in his number, then tosses the phone back Peter’s way, making him fumble to catch it. “You got it now, okay? Call if you need anything. I mean - Happy’s still available to you too, of course, but just in case -“

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, because Tony was started to get that pinched, awkward expression again. “I’ll, um - I’ll see you soon.”

“Tell your Aunt May hi from me,” Tony says, taking a step back towards the Compound. “And like, don’t do drugs, stay in school, all that fun guidance counselor shit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Peter says, dryly, and Tony nods, almost to himself, taking another step back.

“See ya,” he says, and Peter smiles somewhat awkwardly, and ducks into the car. He gets so caught up saying hi to Happy and talking about how the Mets are doing this season that he forgets to look for Tony through the rearview window. By the time Peter glances up, Tony is gone.

-

On the ride home, Peter gets a text from a new contact, put in his phone as simply Tony S.

_ hey kid,  _ it says,  _ make sure to mention to aunt may what a great time you had _

Peter bites back a laugh.  _ Scared of Aunt May? _

_ no,  _ comes the response a minute later,  _ just her stilettos. _

Peter grins like an idiot the rest of the way home.

-

It’s a good weekend.

But that night’s a bad night.

It’s not that he has bad nights often. It’s just that when he does have them, it feels like his lungs have shrunk inside his chest, and his brain is on loop, and all he wants to do is lay in bed and hope the Earth swallows him whole.

But he’s learning, and one of the things he’s learning is that laying in bed doesn’t help much. Instead, when he starts to feel his pulse in his temples, he goes on a walk - long, hours-long things, in the middle of the night, when the streets are as dark as they get in Queens, and the streetlamps diffuse orange light across the cracked sidewalks so they look almost soft.

Before -  _ Before -  _ he never would have been allowed to do this. He’s still not allowed now, technically, except Aunt May can only do so much to stop him when he can climb out windows. Most nights nothing happens - he just walks for a few minutes or a few hours, letting the grey of the city at night settle on his shoulders, until his skin feels less like static and his lungs feel less like they’re lined with lead. Then he comes back home, finishes his homework, goes to bed.

Some nights it doesn’t work. Those nights, he always ends up at the same place - the building overlooking the alley where Ben died. The road doesn’t even have the decency to be stained. Covered in gum, because that’s important, but no blood, no guts, nothing.

Peter sits on the roof until the sun rises, and then he climbs down the fire escape, ducks into his bedroom window to the smell of Aunt May’s burnt pancakes.

What else is there to do? He keeps going.

-

The next few weeks pass fairly uneventfully; Peter goes to school, and comes home, and does his homework, and goes on patrol, and sometimes Tony texts - random things, like  _ you forgot to turn the suit heater off again,  _ and  _ why is raw milk legal  _ and  _ tell me if you want anything else on the next upgrade, okay?  _ But no expensive cars come to sweep Peter away, no suit swoops down during patrols to lecture him, and there are no chance encounters with billionaires. Peter tells himself it’s fine, that he wasn’t expecting anything different; he feels disappointed anyway.

“ _ Dude,”  _ Ned says, when he sees the string of texts in Peter’s phone. “You’re, like,  _ friends  _ with Tony Stark!”

“I don’t think that’s the right word,” Peter tries, and he’s being honest - it doesn’t feel right, to say that they’re friends. It feels too - equal. Peter will never be equal to Tony Stark. He’ll always be the protege, taking and taking and learning from the master, and that’s fine, not everyone has to be equal, but.

“Oh my god, wait, he’s texting you about comics? Oh my god you have to see if he can get us an advanced copy on the next  _ Avengers!”  _ And the subject is dropped.

It happens a few weeks after Peter visits the Compound. He’s out on patrol when he hears a guy shout from an alleyway, and when he swings around the corner he finds a burly man corning a skinny guy by a dumpster, mouth twisted in an ugly sneer.

“- you fucking fag, I saw you in there, macking on that fairy like any of us need to see your fucking  _ filth -“ _

“That’s not very nice,” Peter says, and the burly guy turns to face him, dropping his hands from the other man’s shoulders. “Also, you should really stop making that face, I wouldn’t want it to stick on something that ugly.”

Snarling, the burly guy starts towards him, saying, “Who the fuck do you think you -“

He’s down and webbed up before he can finish his sentence.

“Spiderman,” Peter says. 

The baddie curses, wriggling fruitlessly in the web cage. “Fucking  _ coward -  _ won’t even show your face, bet you’re a fag too -“

Peter ignores him, turning to the skinny guy. “Are you okay?”

“Um -“ the skinny guy starts, eyes wide, but that’s as far as he gets before Peter feels hands on his shoulders, someone pulling at the edge of his mask, and he startles, snapping around.

“Let’s see what’s under that mask,” the guy says, and, Jesus, he’s even uglier than the first one. For a startled second, Peter doesn’t move; and then the guy is reaching for Peter’s mask again, and Peter has the wherewithal to shoot a web at him. It hits him right in the groin, pinning him to the brick wall by his probably very small dick.

“Shit,” Peter says, and then realizes his mask is half peeled off of his face, and scrambles to pull it back down. “Shit, shit,  _ shit.” _

“I’ll call the cops,” someone behind Peter says, and Peter turns to see the skinny guy cautiously emerging from the shadows. He smiles weakly. “You should get out of here before someone else does something stupid.”

Peter glances at the two men trying to break free of his webs. “That was all of them?”

The skinny guy huffs a bit of a laugh. “Not all of them, no. There’s always more homophobes. But they’re the only ones who were bothering me tonight.” He pauses, swallowing. “Go home, kid,” he says finally, and Peter nods, taking a step back, and another.

“I owe you one,” Peter says, and this time when the guy laughs it is full bodied, sincere.

“I think that’s my line,” he says, and Peter tips him a two fingered salute before he’s off into the sky, his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest.

_ Nothing happened,  _ he reminds himself as he swings from building to building.  _ He barely saw anything, you’re fine. _

It doesn’t stop him from lying awake for hours that night, heart pounding just a bit too fast in his chest, as he wonders what might have happened if he had been just a little bit slower, what might happen next time if he isn’t more careful, what would happen to him if anybody found out.

-

Peter’s still kind of freaking out when he wakes up the next morning, but he tells himself it’s nothing, and does five minutes of the mindful breathing exercises the school counselor taught him after Ben died. Then, when that doesn’t work, he decides,  _ fuck it,  _ and gets his shit together to go to school anyway, because life doesn’t stop just because he’s a little bit anxious.

He makes it through most of the day without incident, until he’s in Chemistry, working on a lab with Ned, and his phone vibrates. It’s sitting on the table, so it makes a sharp buzzing sound; Peter snatches it up and throws it in his bag as soon as he can, but not soon enough to avoid the notice of Mr. Carozza, who’s frowning in his direction.

“Dumbass,” Ned says. Peter rolls his eyes.

The phone buzzes three more times in the next five minutes, before Peter finally snaps and sneaks it out of his bag to glance at it under the table.

_ hey _

_ hey kid _

_ what are you doing _

_ kiiiiiidddddddddd _

_ In class,  _ Peter sends back hurriedly, keeping his eyes on Mr. Carozza, who’s explaining one of the questions to a girl at the front of the room.  _ Can’t talk. _

The response is so instantaneous Peter wonders where Tony learned to type that fast. 

_ i’m in the neighborhood _

_ I have two more periods,  _ Peter says.

_ imp? _

_ PE and Lit. _

_ give me 5 _

Mr. Carozza straightens then, so Peter has to hurriedly tuck his phone away in his backpack before he can ask Tony what he means.

He finds out when the speaker crackles on five minutes later. “Peter Parker,” Ms. Li the office lady says, “Please come down to the office.”

There’s the usual titters from the back of the class, and one kid cackles, “What’d you do wrong now, Parker?”

“Quiet,” Mr. Carozza snaps as Peter quickly gathers his things.

“Peter?” Ned asks, but Peter just shakes his head.

“I’ll text you,” he says, then hands his finished lab to Mr. Carozza and heads down to the office.

Sure enough, Happy is waiting for him, leaning against Ms. Li’s desk and squinting at her ChiaPet Barack Obama.

“Peter,” Happy says, pushing himself out of the chair, which is really too small for his bulk. “The boss is waiting.”

“Um, I need to sign out -“ Peter starts, looking towards Ms. Li.

She smiles at him. “Your aunt called, you’re all set,” she says, “Have fun at your conference!”

“My -“ Peter glances over at Happy, who raises an eyebrow. “My conference, right,” Peter says. “Um - totally, thank you, Ms. Li, have a nice day.”

“Where are we going actually?” Peter asks once they’re outside, headed towards the car. It’s been getting colder lately; the wind bites at Peter’s cheeks, making him huddle into his coat a bit, chin tucked beneath his collar. “Not that I mind, I mean, obviously-“

“Just get in, kid,” Happy says, opening the backseat door. When Peter slides into the car, backpack on his lap, he finds Tony waiting for him.

“Um, hey,” Peter starts, but before he can get very far, Tony holds up a finger, the universal sign for,  _ wait just one moment, please.  _ He finishes typing something in his phone, then says, “FRIDAY, save, run diagnostics on the new design, have a review for me by the time I’m done here.” Then he tosses his phone down on the seat next to him, and takes off his sunglasses to look at Peter. He’s smiling.

“Kid,” he says. “How’ve you been? Let’s get ice cream.”

-

They head to a little creamery in Brooklyn, one with deliberately run-down decor and exposed vents, the sort of hipster decor Ben loved to hate. The thought makes something twinge in Peter’s chest, but he ignores it in favor of perusing the menu - three dozen options, all scrawled on the chalkboard in the same artsy, barely-legible script.

“Oh, man, I want dulce de leche, like, all of it,” Tony says, and stuffs a fifty dollar bill in the tip jar. “They have the best dulce de leche,” Tony tells Peter, and Peter nods and orders a scoop of cake batter and a scoop of marshmallow s’more. Tony wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t stop him.

They find a tiny little booth in the back corner of the store, in a little dimly lit alcove where nobody will come looking for them. Tony’s got his back to the door, and his head down, slightly; Peter wonders what it must be like, to have to hide all the time.

“How are you?” Peter asks, after an awkward minute of silence with their rapidly melting ice cream, and Tony huffs, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, man,” he says. “You would not believe -” and then he’s off on a ten-minute rant about how horrible it is to run a company, complete with tortured faces and enthusiastic hand gestures that send little drops of melted ice cream flicking over the tabletop.

“But enough about me,” Tony says, finally, after he’s outlined every - apparently horrible - step of Stark Industry’s most recent acquisition. “What about you? How’s high school? Got a girlfriend? A boyfriend? A non-binary special individual?”

Peter blushes. “Um, no,” he says, looking down at his ice cream. He swirls his spoon through the sagging whipped cream. “That kind of, um, went out the window after, you know, the last girl I had a crush on ended up being the daughter of a criminal.”

Tony makes a sympathetic noise. “Yeah, I get that,” he says. “What about your -  _ other  _ extracurriculars? Anything exciting happen? Anything you want to tell me about?”

Peter looks up at him, and the pure innocent on his face, and sighs. “You know.”

Tony raises his eyebrows, takes a bite of ice cream. “Know what?” he asks, wide-eyed.

Peter has to bite back another sigh. “Look,” he starts, “it was only part of my face, and it was only for a moment. The most that guy could have figured out is that I’m white, and let’s face it, I’ve got a pretty white voice anyway -“

“A pretty loud voice, too,” Tony comments, and Peter quiets. “Look,” Tony continues, voice low, “I’m not here to, like, punish you or something. That’d be cruel, and makes no sense. But I saw some of the footage from your suit last night, and I think it’s a valid concern. Next time you come out to train, we’ll add in some self-defense moves that focus on keeping your mask in place. But there’s no guarantee nothing’ll happen, and I can’t exactly superglue it down.”

Peter sighs, swirling his melting ice cream around in his cup. “I know,” he says. “But I don’t know - like, what -“

“Hey,” Tony says calmly, “don’t stress. I’m not bringing this up to freak you out or - whatever. I just want it to be something you consider. Even if your mask did come off in a fight, chances are we’d be able to contain it - but it’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it. I just want you to know I’m aware of it, and I’m considering it.”

Peter nods, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Okay,” he says finally, and Tony nods and sits back in his chair, looking satisfied. Peter hadn’t realized he was leaning so close.

“Good,” he says, “now, seriously, tell me what’s going on in your life, I refuse to believe that your high school could be so different than the ones on TV that there’s no drama there whatsoever.”

“Um, _ I  _ go there,” Peter points out. “It’s literally the home of a secret mutant. Also, a bunch of us almost died in D.C. last year. Also, there was an illegal arms dealer on the PTA.”

Tony waves a hand. “Other than that.”

Peter flounders for something to say. “Um. I don’t know, my friends aren’t really the dramatic type. Decathalon practice has started up again. Um. The cafeteria stopped serving meatloaf. Uh, - oh! We finally got to do our fetal pig dissection in biology, which was, like, really cool -“ He cuts himself off. “But you don’t care about that, that’s, that’s boring stuff, um -“

“I remember my first fetal pig dissection,” Tony interrupts. Peter glances up, expecting to see Tony laughing at him, but instead, he just looks very sincere. “I was twelve. I’m not really a biology guy myself, but - we unraveled the small intestine to see how long it was. It was  _ insane.” _

“Right!” Peter jumps in enthusiastically. “It was, like, twice my height! Flash tried to play jump rope with his, but MJ stopped him. That’s not even counting the  _ brain  _ though _ ,  _ did you crack it’s skull open?”

Tony gives him an affronted look. “Of course I did,” he says. “What self-respecting nerd doesn’t?”

“Oh,  _ man,”  _ Peter says, leaning over the table. “Wasn’t it so cool? I know we all, like, learned all the general biology stuff ages ago, but it’s so different, reading about the parts of a body in a book and seeing them in front of you. It’s like - like -“

“Like the difference between code and a functioning machine,” Tony supplies, and Peter nods, grinning.

“Yeah, exactly,” Peter says. Then he realizes he just blabbed about fetal pig brains to  _ Tony Stark,  _ and he blushes, leans back in his chair. “Anyway, I really like my bio class. And we’re starting to do some cool things in chemistry, which is fun, even if I don’t have as much time to make webbing anymore.”

“About that,” Tony says, taking another bite of his ice cream. “We should look at that next time you come down to the compound. I haven’t gotten a good chance to look at the polymer yet - what is it, something with nylon? - but it seems like it could have some pretty far-reaching applications. If nothing else, I’m sure we can find a more efficient way to produce it than under your desk during labs.”

“Uh, yeah, that would be - great, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, and Tony huffs.

“Tony,” he says. “Call me Tony.”

“Sure,” Peter says, “Mr. Stark.”

“Come on,” Tony says, “say it with me:  _ Tone-E _ .”

“ _ Mister-Stark.” _

Tony huffs, leaning back in his chair. “I’m gonna get you to call me Tony,” he says. Peter shrugs, and hides his smile by taking another bite of ice cream.

“So you want to be a biochemical engineer, then?” Tony asks after a moment.

“Maybe,” Peter says. “I mean, I want to change the world,” he takes a sip of his water, openly grinning at Tony over the table. “But they won’t give me the source code.”

That startles a laugh out of Tony. “It’s a good thing I’m the best engineer in the world, then. We put our heads together, I’m sure we can figure it out.”

-

They spend a while in the ice cream shop, talking about school and robots and internships (“I was thinking of trying to get a summer job at Oscorp -“ “ _ Blegh,  _ Oscorp, I think I just threw up in my mouth, you are  _ not  _ allowed to get an internship there, let me talk to Helen Cho for you, see if she has any jobs -“ “You know  _ Helen Cho? _ ”). Then Tony gives him a ride back to his apartment, dropping him at the door with a cursory, “Be safe, kid,” before Happy peels out of there. 

That night at dinner, his aunt asks him what’s got him in such a good mood, and he just smiles and shakes his head, thinking about the experiment he’s been wanting to do in waterproofing his web fibers and wondering if Tony would let him run it in his workshop.

After that, Tony drops by occasionally - not often, but often enough. He always says he’s in the area, though Peter’s not really sure what that means, “in the area”, what the area is when you own a suit that can cross the continental United States in less than two hours. It’s kind of weird at first, Tony being so involved - there’s a part of Peter, however small, that’d gotten used to the distance he had imposed after Germany. It seems - deliberate, almost, Tony breaking it, and it is, of course - he’d said he was going to be more present - but it’s still surprising, every time Tony texts or calls or picks him up from school and asks him about something he’d only mentioned in passing. It’s nice, having another adult who cares, and after a while, it gets more normal.

Usually when he comes by they go out for food, or sometimes back to Aunt May’s, where they’ll eat takeout. The first time, Tony brings sushi and edamame and green tea mochi, and grins at Aunt May around the tower of boxes. “My driver fucked up my sushi order,” he says, and Aunt May lifts a single eyebrow but steps aside to let him enter. The three of them eat rainbow rolls on the couch and talk about Peter’s classes, and nobody is surprised when Tony happens to have a new communicator with him that he “might as well drop off, since he’s in the area.”

Often when Tony comes, he brings with him new tech, or a supplement for the suit until its next upgrade. Occasionally, he gifts Peter with the type of expensive nerd toys that make Ned wet his pants. Most of the time, they talk, though the conversation inevitably ends up focused on Peter, as Tony dodges questions about his his life and the Accords and sometimes Pepper with the kind of grace Peter suspects comes from growing up in the media.

Peter still has the standing invitation to come up to the Compound, and now he starts taking Tony up on it. Every few weeks, Happy picks Peter up from school and they head upstate, where Peter spends the weekend messing with robots and punching Vision and generally learning what it means to be a superhero.

When Tony and Pepper break up, Peter reads about it on Twitter.  **IRON MAN AND HIS CEO HEADED TO SPLITSVILLE,** reads the message Flash retweeted from  _ US Weekly,  _ along with a link to an article they’ve written about it. Peter clicks it, skims, then checks a few other more reputable sources, but all of them say approximately the same thing: that a source has confirmed that Pepper and Tony are no longer together; that neither has commented on the matter; and that many have begun to speculate that the reason for their breakup is that Tony was unfaithful.

The last part is bullshit, Peter is pretty sure, so he avoids reading any more news articles or clicking the tags that have started trending on Twitter - #IronMisogynist being the most mundane among them - and for the next few days, he ignores it, figuring it’s probably just a rumor.

A week later, though, Flash retweets another link, this one to a  _ People  _ magazine article about Pepper’s new boyfriend. The article includes half a dozen pictures of Pepper at a coffee shop in Brooklyn, hand lightly clasped in Happy’s across the table.

**PEPPER POTTS LEAVES TONY STARK FOR BODYGUARD,** the headline says.

Peter debates, briefly, not saying anything - but even if Tony doesn’t want to talk about it, it seems like the polite thing to do, like telling someone your thoughts are with them if they lose someone, or bringing soup to someone who’s sick.

_ I heard what happened,  _ Peter finally settles on.  _ I’m sorry. _

The read receipt pops up half an hour later, but he doesn’t get a response for another day.

_ Thanks, kid. _

Peter leaves it at that.

-

“Don’t you have someone else to do this for you?” Peter asks as he enters the lab, setting down the grocery bags filled with takeout on Tony’s desk. He gives Dummy a good scratch behind the ears as he passes him. “An assistant, or something? A robot, maybe.”

Tony had texted Peter only a few minutes after Happy had picked him up at school for the weekend, saying,  _ urgent, mayday, ground control to major tom, i have a desperate need for a good gyro. tell happy, he knows where to go. _

“I haven’t had an assistant in years,” Tony says, sliding back from the chest plate he was welding, and flipping his mask up. “And all my bots are useless.” Beside them, Dummy makes a sad whirring noise, sagging his head.

“Oh, don’t worry, he doesn’t mean it, Dummy,” Peter says, giving him a consolatory pat. Dummy brightens, arm bobbing.

“Yes I do,” Tony says, but Dummy’s whizzing off towards the opposite end of the workshop, where there’s a fridge and a blender. “Oh, you’ve done it now, Parker, he’s gonna make you a smoothie - sounds nice, doesn’t it, a smoothie, that’s why I programmed him to make them, but no, it’s not nice, he keeps adding motor oil and dirty rags.”

Peter grins. “Sounds like Aunt May’s cooking.”

Tony huffs, lips quirking. “You said it, not me,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. He groans, leans back to crack his back. “Jesus, I’m getting old.”

“You said it, not me.”

Tony shakes his head. “The sass of this younger generation. Unbelievable."

Peter rolls his eyes, already heading across the lab to his makeshift workstation; last time he’d come by, they’d started his experiment, trying to get the webs to hold up against water for more than two hours without dissolving, and Tony had cleared a corner of his workshop for him to set it up.

Peter looks over the results and sighs. No dice. “FRIDAY, how long did these ones last?” Peter asks.

“Five hours, seven minutes, thirteen seconds,” FRIDAY supplies promptly.

Peter sighs again. That’s worse than the last time.

“No, Dummy,” he hears from behind him, and he turns to see Tony sitting by the bags of takeout boxes, a gyro in one hand, the other fending off Dummy, who’s holding a truly alarming-looking smoothie. “How many times have we been over this, humans cannot drink motor oil, it will kill me - yes, it will kill me dead, are you trying to kill me dead -“

“Give it here, Dummy, I’ll drink it,” Peter says, and Dummy, who had begun to slump, again, straightens quickly and rolls over.

“You shouldn’t be encouraging him,” Tony reprimands, but there’s no real bite to it.

Peter holds the glass to his lips, pretends to take a sip. “Mmm, delicious,” Peter says, wiping the motor oil stain from his upper lip. Dummy whirrs happily, and spins off to the other end of the workshop, where Butterfingers is sleeping while You works on fabrication.

“Did you actually swallow any of that?” Tony asks, sounding vaguely curious. Peter shakes his head, setting the glass down. God, that looks disgusting - thick and lumpy and grey like watery tar.

“”No, but the smell was enough.” Peter makes a face.

Tony rolls his eyes. “I warned you,” he says, but he says, “Here,” and tosses Peter a gyro anyway. “Focus on fueling up for the drills Vision’s got planned for you tomorrow, and stop encouraging the inanimate objects.”

Peter makes a face, but doesn’t allow himself to be deterred from the subject at hand. “Dummy’s perfectly animate,” he argues as he unwraps the sandwich -  _ lamb,  _ Peter thinks, with no small degree of satisfaction. His favorite. “It’s not like I’m talking to your suits or something.  _ That _ would be weird.”

“He’s animate like a iRobot vacuum cleaner is animate,” Tony says. “He doesn’t have emotions.”

Peter glances over to where Dummy’s poking at Butterfingers wheels, like he’s trying to wake him up. They’re like a group of brothers, Peter has learned, as much as they might compete or fight. The thought makes something abruptly tighten in his chest. “Sometimes I wonder.”

When he turns back, Tony is looking at him strangely. “You okay, kid?” he asks. “You look a bit -“

“I’m fine,” Peter says, then looks down at his gyro. “Well, okay, maybe not totally fine.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks carefully, setting down his food. “Something you want to talk about?”

Peter shrugs, picking at his pita. “It’s silly,” he says. “I mean, it’s just - it’s not anything important.”

“If it’s bothering you, it’s important,” Tony says. “What’s going on?”

Peter sighs. “It’s just - well, Ned and I had a fight about something stu pid. And now he’s avoiding me. And I’m still kind of annoyed, but not so annoyed that I don’t want to say sorry. Except I can’t find him to talk about it.”

“What was this fight about?” 

Peter blushes. “It’s stupid, it was, ah - we got tickets together for the new Star Wars premiere a few months ago. Except now he wants to go with this girl he’s interested in. He’s gonna go with her like a day late or whatever, and he gave me his extra ticket, it’s just frustrating, because, well -“

“Because you wanted to go with him,” Tony supplies, and Peter nods.

“Yeah. And I told him that, but then he got upset because he says I’ve been spending less time with him since I became Spiderman, and it’s - I mean, it’s not totally untrue? Especially since we’ve both been spending more time with MJ, we just have less - best friend time.”

Tony nods again, looking contemplative. “Well, I can’t say I am the mature mind to turn to for advice,” he says, “but I have had a best friend for thirty years, and I get where he’s coming from. It’s never fun when your best friend suddenly doesn’t have time for you. I mean, of course I get where you’re coming from, but it seems like he was already kind of frustrated with you and this was just the final straw.’

“Yeah,” Peter says miserably.

“Hey, don’t get so maudlin, kid. This is fixable. All you gotta do is apologize, okay? Forgive him for this - I mean, don’t tell him you’ve forgiven him, but I’m sure you’ve stood him up for Spiderman stuff before, right? So get past your anger and just apologize to him. Even if he’s avoiding you, he has a phone, right? Text him, tell him you’re sorry, and I’m sure you’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

“Did that work for you and Colonel Rhodes?” Peter asks. Tony seems confused, so he clarifies, “Apologizing. I don’t - I don’t want to lose his friendship, but that doesn’t change the fact I don’t have as much time as I used to, and I don’t want -“

“Just be aware of that,” Tony interrupts before Peter can go into a worry spiral. “Like, tell him you know that things have changed, and that sucks, but he’s still your - what does he call it? Your man in the chair?”

“Okay,” Peter says. “Thank you, this was really helpful.”

Tony waves him off, looking uncomfortable. “Don’t mention it, kid,” he says, “no, seriously, don’t, emotions give me hives, let’s focus on what you’re here for, which is  _ science -“ _

Peter’s learned, over time, that Tony doesn’t take thanks well. He always gets awkward and tries to brush it off, but Peter wants to thank him, and do it in a way that he knows Tony will listen.

So when Peter and Tony get in an argument after a few hours in the workshop over what the best movie of all time is, and Tony decides he needs to introduce Peter to the wonders of The Godfather (Parts I, II, and III) right this minute, Peter takes it as the opportunity it is. He tells Tony he’s going to hang back to check on his web project one last time, but that Tony should head up and get the movie started.

Tony rolls his eyes, but heads towards the stairs. “So paranoid, Parker. You know FRIDAY’s watching them.”

“It’s my baby,” Peter says. “I’m allowed to monitor the babysitter.”

“I’ll have you know I take offense to that on behalf of FRIDAY,” Tony calls over his shoulder. “Don’t take too long or I’ll eat all the popcorn.”

His footsteps fades as he heads up the stairs, but Peter waits a good thirty seconds after he disappears from sight before he pulls out a sticky note from his bag and jots something on it. Then he turns toward the suit alcoves.

“That’s Tony’s newest suit, right, Fry?” he asks, nodding towards the opaque recess that’s appeared since the last time he visited.

“It is the most recent suit Boss has built, yes,” FRIDAY says.

“Awesome. Okay, I just wanted to leave him something with the suit, can you pop open the alcove for me?”

FRIDAY is silent for a moment, almost as if she is thinking, and Peter pauses, concerned. “Fry?” Tony’s never banned him from access anywhere in his workshop.

“Mr. Stark has not explicitly told me not to open this for you,” FRIDAY says, “so I suppose a can.” There’s a whir and a hiss as the compartment pops open.

“Thanks, FRID-“ Peter cuts himself off mid-sentence, Because that’s a suit in the alcove all right, but it’s not a new Iron Man suit at all. It’s black and red and sleek, far too small for Tony to fit into, and at the chest, where the arc reactor sits, there is an emblem of a spider, reaching out.

“Fry, what is this?”

“This is the Mark: Spiderling,” FRIDAY says softly. “Boss has been working on it for several weeks.”

Peter reaches and strokes the faceplate with his fingertips. “Is it - done?”

“No,” FRIDAY says. “Boss is still working on it. I believe he intended for it to be a surprise.”

Peter swallows hard, but it doesn’t do much for the lump in his throat. “Um, thanks FRIDAY,” he says. “Don’t - don’t tell Tony I saw it, will you?”

“If Mr. Stark asks me, I cannot lie,” FRIDAY says. “But I see no reason why this should come up in conversation.”

“Thanks, Fry.” Peter steps back. “Close it up, will you?”

He sticks the note on Tony’s welder instead, then heads upstairs to meet Happy, something sharp buzzing in his bones.

-

Peter falls asleep halfway through the Godfather Part II, a bag of the caramel corn Tony buys for him laying open on his chest. He wakes some hours later in a dimly lit hallway, being carried by smooth metal arms.

Someone says something, but their voice is too quiet for Peter to understand, and the rhythmic whirring of the suit’s joints is soothing.

Peter thinks of the note he’d left in the workshop, which says, in its entirety:  _ Thank you. I know you don’t like hearing it but I want you to know. _

He lets himself drift off to sleep.

-

The next morning, Peter forces himself out of bed at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning, already starving. He crawls out of bed reluctantly, and all but stumbles towards the kitchen, where he knows there’ll be cold falafel and Doritos, if nothing else.

When he gets there, he’s pleasantly surprised to find there is more than falafel and Doritos - there’s a plate of bacon sitting out on the counter, and he can smell pancakes cooking. Peter stuffs a handful of bacon in his mouth, and is turning to thank Tony, cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk, when his mind wakes up enough to realize that it is not, in fact, Tony standing at the stove flipping pancakes, and that Peter is wearing a ‘I <3 NY’ t-shirt while stealing a war hero’s bacon.

“Colonel Rhodes,” Peter chokes out, when he finally manages to swallow his stolen bacon. “I - it’s good to - I mean, I am  _ so sorry,  _ I didn’t mean to -“

Colonel Rhodes looks amused, gaze skirting down to his t-shirt and back again. “So you must be Peter,” he says, and before Peter can respond, gestures to one of the bar stools with his spatula. “Have a seat, kid. And eat as much as you like. I made plenty.”

Peter sits cautiously. He doesn’t want to take any food, but his stomach is grumbling, so he takes a few more slices of bacon, and a few pancakes, once he sees the truly massive stack Rhodey has made.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says when he sees Peter’s expression. “I wasn’t joking when I said I made plenty. I know how you high metabolism types work.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Peter says sincerely. “I’ve always admired Iron Patriot.”

Rhodes chuckles as he settles into the seat beside Peter, his metal legs whirring. “Don’t let Tony hear you say that,” he says. “Not the admiring me part,” he clarifies at Peter’s confused look. “The ‘Iron Patriot’ bit. He’s always liked the name ‘War Machine’ better.”

“Why’d they change it?” Peter asks, cutting into his pancakes.

“Branding,” Rhodes says. “PR, that unique brand of bull - anyway. There’s been a lot of it going around lately.”

Peter swallows his pancakes. “You mean the stuff with Captain America?”

Rhodes waves his fork. “Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Hawkeye, take your pick.” He takes a bite of bacon. “Tony too, really. There’s been a lot of - things have changed, recently.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rhodes confirms. He sighs. “I think he got used to it. Having people around. And now they’re not, and I -“ He sighs again, setting down his fork. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be putting this on a teenager. He’s fine - I mean, he’s Tony Stark.”

Peter looks down at his plate. “Well, he’s seemed good to me,” Peter says cautiously. “If that means anything.”

“Yeah?” Rhodes asks, looking hopeful.

Peter nods. “He comes down for dinner a lot, and we text, and he’s always - I don’t know, he doesn’t tell me much about himself, but he’s been helping me a lot, and I don’t know if I’ve seen him really upset about anything. He always seems happy.” Peter tilts his head. “But I don’t know if that helps, at all.”

“It does, actually,” Rhodes says, and the thing is he does look genuinely more chipper. “Thanks, kid. I just worry about him because -well, to be perfectly honest, because he needs people more than he lets on. Not to support him, necessarily, just to be there. It’s good to know that Vision and I aren’t all he’s got.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that, so he takes another big bite of pancakes.

“Anyway,” Rhodes says, seeming to sense Peter’s awkwardness. “It’s good to meet you. That’s part of the reason I came down - Tony keeps going on and on about this new mutant kid he found, and here I am, never having really met you.”

“Really?” Peter brightens. “He talks about me? What does he say?”

“He told me about some of the experiments you’re doing - the webbing down in his lab? Mainly training stuff, though - how’s the muay thai work coming? I sent him those drills.”

“It’s been going pretty good,” Peter says. “Vision and I are up to the spinning back kick, which is way harder than it looks online.”

Rhodes smirks. “Every move worth knowing always is. What’s catching you up?”

“Well, it’s the spin - every time I do it I give it away with my lead foot, and Vision smacks me down. I’ve been thinking about how to get around it, and I had this idea -“

It’s surprisingly easy, talking to Colonel Rhodes. Peter would’ve thought he’d get more tongue-tied, but maybe after you meet your idol, everything else is easy. They talk about training for a while; at one point, Rhodes gets frustrated trying to explain something and pulls out a tablet to sketch it out on, which turns into him pulling up Youtube videos of military self-defense techniques that he plays at a quarter-speed, breaking down the moves for Peter.

Tony wanders in at the end of breakfast, bleary-eyed and slow. Rhodes pauses the Youtube video, which is of a SHIELD agent explaining how to dislocate an opponent’s knee.

“Mornin’,” Tony mumbles, brushing his hand along the back of Rhodey’s neck as he passes him. Peter expects him to head straight for the coffee machine, but he pauses next to Peter, squinting down at his plate of bacon fat and maple syrup. “You should have some fruit with that,” he says. “A pear or an - orange, or something-“

“Oh my god,” Rhodes says from beside Peter, a slow smile blooming on his face. “Is  _ Tony Stark  _ actually lecturing someone about proper nutrition?”

“Oh, shut up,” Tony mutters, “I’m just trying to keep Spiderman from dying of scurvy,” but it doesn’t escape Peter how Tony turns away to tinker with the coffeepot for a full five minutes, the back of his neck faintly pink, before he turns back around to needle Rhodey about physio.

-

There is one horrible, horrible moment from one of Peter’s visits to the Compound which he has tried to burn from his memory. It involves Peter’s right hand, an unfortunately unlocked door, and Tony literally  _ screaming  _ before stumbling down the hallway, his hand pressed over his eyes, like he’d just been hit in the face with hydrochloric acid.

“That didn’t happen, your door was locked, never speak of it again,” Tony says to Peter when he slinks into the kitchen, blushing bright red, fifteen minutes later. “God.  _ God,  _ now I known how Jarvis must’ve felt when I was a teenager.” Peter puts his head down on the table and tells himself he doesn’t want to die.

-

It’s three am and Peter’s panicking.

_ Maybe you shouldn’t call him,  _ Peter thinks, even as he listens to the FaceTime call ring through.  _ This is stupid, he’s busy - oh God he’s probably sleeping - _

“Hello?” Tony says, scrubbing at his face. His beard is a bit longer than usual, and there’s oil on his forehead; he’s halfway through a workshop binge, then. Peter’s worries ease a little.

“He-ey,” Peter says, trying to seem casual, but from the way Tony squints he hasn’t quite managed it. “So. Um. The thing is that, um, I, uh - well -“

“Spit it out, kid.”

“Right, ok, so - I need your help. The science fair is coming up in, like, a week. And the deadline to submit projects was today, but I uh -“ Peter swallows, looks down at his hands. “I thought the deadline was tomorrow, so I didn’t have anything ready today - I’ve been really busy with school and Spiderman stuff, I hadn’t had the  _ time -  _ but in class, Ms. Anderson reminded us, and I kind of panicked, and wrote up the webbing project I’ve been working on and turned it in, except now I’m panicking  _ again _ because I haven’t been able to figure the webbing out and I’ve been working on it for months, and also it occurs to me that maybe it’s not the most subtle thing, working on webbing just like Spiderman’s while secretly being Spiderman -“

“Kid, breathe,” Tony interrupts. Peter stops, takes a deep breath in, out. His increased lung capacity means he doesn’t really need it, but it calms his racing heart a bit. “This is fine. This is nothing.”

“But -“

“Ok, first of all, you’ve told people you’re my intern, right?” Tony waits for Peter’s nod. “That’s why you’re working on spiderwebs. I asked you to.”

“Um -“ Peter starts. Tony raises his eyebrows. “Well, the thing is people don’t really - believe me, that I’m your intern.”

“Well, then that’s two birds with one stone. Are they really gonna think you’re Spiderman before they think that maybe you’ve just been telling the truth this whole time?”

Peter wrinkles his nose, but it’s a good point.

“And we can figure your webs out in a week. You’ve only been working on it on and off so far, and without my direct involvement. Talk to May - I know it’s technically your off weekend, but you can come up to the Compound, we’ll spend a couple days figuring it out.”

Peter takes a deep breath. “That would be - awesome. Thank you so much Mr. Stark.”

Tony waves a hand and leans back, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “Ah, don’t worry about it kid. I’m invested in the webbing myself - I’ve been thinking about adopting some of those polymers into the safety system of my suits.”

Peter’s gotten used to having Iron Man around, but sometimes it just kind of blindsides him - like this moment, right now.  _ Iron Man is going to have something I built in his suit,  _ Peter thinks. Sometimes he wonders how he ended up with this as his life.

“- anyway why’s the science fair matter to you so much, kid? I mean, I know it’ll be cool when you win and all, but you’re the smartest one there, we know you’re the smartest one there, there’s no reason to panic.”

“Well,” Peter starts, “that’s not really - I mean, it’s nice to be recognized, but it’s more about the prize money. Blue ribbon gets a two-thousand dollar scholarship.”

Tony blinks out at him from the screen. “What do you need two grand for?” he asks finally.

“Oh, it’s nothing specific, just, like, general college saving -”

“Kid,” Tony interrupts, frowning at him through the camera. “Are you joking right now? You’re not paying for your own college.”

“Well, Aunt May  _ says  _ that, but she can’t afford tuition at the schools I want to go to, and there’s no guarantee about scholarships -”

“I’m not talking about Aunt May, Webhead,” Tony says. “I’m talking about me.”

“Um,” Peter says, blinking.

Tony huffs, and the video feed goes shaky as he pushes himself to his feet. “Seriously, you thought I’d make you take out crippling student loan debt when I can pay?”

“It’s not your responsibility to pay,” Peter hears himself say. “I mean - that’s really gracious of you, but of course I wouldn’t expect you to -”   


“Well, learn to start expecting, I got it squirreled away in a 529 and everything, just like your Aunt May - anyway, you coming over this weekend? Or has the appeal of the science fair faded without the need for a bucket of cash?”

Some part of Peter thinks he should protest this - should say thanks but no thanks, stick to his morals and work his own way through college. Except college costs 70k a year at Ivy League schools, and it wouldn’t really be him sticking it out, it’d be Aunt May, and there’s a point where sticking to your morals becomes being stupidly stubborn.

“Well, I still wanna beat Flash,” Peter says, and Tony laughs, sounding almost relieved. “I’ll talk to Aunt May, but -” Peter swallows hard, goes against his better judgement - “You know I don’t care that you get me things, right? I’d still want to come down on the weekends if you weren’t - if you didn’t -”

“Sure, kid,” Tony interrupts, almost rough. There’s a long pause before he speaks again. “Text me after you talk to Aunt May, and I’ll let Happy know when to pick you up.”

The screen goes black as Tony hangs up, and Peter worries, for a second, that he’d pushed it too far.

_ Nah,  _ Peter thinks. Rhodey had said Tony needed people, people who didn’t use him for his wealth or fame. That means he probably needs to hear that he has them, even if he gets all weird when people say it.

Peter wonders, now, like he’s wondered before, how many people have been driven off by the awkwardness before.

-

For all that Tony seems to know exactly where Peter is and exactly what Peter’s doing at all hours of the day, Peter rarely catches Tony doing anything he doesn’t expressly want Peter to know about. It makes sense - Tony is Tony, and Peter thinks he’s sort of omnipotent, and also it’s not like Peter is exactly running into him at the bodega with his secret new girlfriend or something.

But sometimes, when he stays at the Compound on the weekends, he’ll find Tony in places he wouldn’t expect him to. In the living room, staring at the TV as it plays out the latest updates on the Rogue Avengers’ international trials; leaning against Colonel Rhodes in the kitchen, half-asleep as Rhodes fries eggs; sitting in his workshop, turning a little early-2000s era flip phone over and over in his hands.

He always stops whatever he’s doing as soon as he sees Peter, straightening and smiling and cracking a self-deprecating joke, and Peter never says anything about it, because he knows if he did Tony would probably splutter out some excuse and then disappear for a few weeks, and maybe it’s selfish but Peter doesn’t want Tony to disappear.

Still, Peter often wishes he and Tony had a different sort of relationship, one where he could go up and shake him and hug him and tell him it’s okay to be less than a god, it’s okay to have emotions, it’s okay to be human.

-

When Peter realizes Tony’s birthday is coming up, he decides he’s going to do something for it, even if Tony doesn’t like celebrating. FRIDAY had said that Tony didn’t have a party or such planned, and Colonel Rhodes said he had to be in D.C. that day for some sort of meeting, and so a few days beforehand, Peter asks Tony if he wants to come over for dinner. He doesn’t mention that he knows it’s Tony’s birthday, but Tony agrees easily anyway, leaving Peter to wonder - a bit sadly - what he’d had planned before Peter asked him over.

When Tony arrives, the afternoon of his birthday, Peter and Aunt May are waiting for him in the kitchen, which is covered in a fine dusting of flour.

“Happy Birthday,” Aunt May says, smiling, as she gestures towards the table where the vaguely green cake is sitting, 48 candles blazing on top.

“Oh,” Tony says, blinking fast. He looks startled, Peter thinks, like a raccoon caught with it’s hand in the trash can.  _ Guess he didn’t see this coming,  _ Peter thinks, and feels absurdly proud of himself, even though he hasn’t really done very much. “I - um, didn’t realize -“

“Peter helped me make it,” May says pointedly, patting Peter briefly on the shoulder as she steps past him. “It’s his favorite of my recipes. Goes great with a glass of milk. I figure we can have this before dinner, a bit of an afternoon snack. I’ve got pot roast cooking, and it’s not quite done. ”

Tony widens his eyes at Peter as May shuffles through the refrigerator.  _ Sorry,  _ Peter mouths.

_ I will kill you,  _ Tony mouths back.

May turns to set down the milk and Tony’s scowl immediately transforms into a smile. “Well, it looks delicious,” he says. “The candles are - maybe a bit overkill -“

“Oh, that was Peter’s idea, too,” May says matter-of-factly, reaching for the plates. “He insisted on getting just the right number.”

_ Fuck you,  _ Tony mouths at Peter. Peter grins.

They sing happy birthday to him, and Peter is painfully off-key, deliberately so. Tony glares at him and blows out his million candles, and then May gets out a knife and cuts him a thick slice of cake, generously frosted.

It tastes like rotten avocado and mustard. It is, single-handedly, the worst dessert Peter has ever tasted. 

“Thank you so much for this, May,” Tony says around a mouthful of cake he’s been chewing for two minutes but seems unwilling to swallow. “It’s delicious.”

“Thank you!” May says, smiling. Behind her, Peter forces another bite of cake into his mouth, and barely manages to keep himself from puking on the spot.

Tony stabs at his cake. He’s got a strange glint in his eye, which may be gratitude or may be deviousness as he plots his revenge. Peter wonders what Tony’s going to do when his next birthday comes around - Colonel Rhodes probably won’t let him make a cake out of dog food, but there’ll definitely be something disgusting in it. Asparagus, maybe. Kale. 

Tony takes another bite, and looks like he’s suppressing his gag reflex.

_ Dog food it is,  _ Peter thinks.

-

“You look happier,” Aunt May tells Peter one night over dinner.

Peter pauses halfway about how MJ eviscerated Flash at their last Decathalon practice.

“I am,” he finds himself saying. “Things have been - good.”

Because he has. Things haven’t been perfect, because things are never perfect - Peter still has the nightmares, the bad days, the moments when he can feel the helplessness laying on top of him, like a stapler pounding at his heart.

But on bad nights, now, instead of going walking, he talks to Tony Stark. Sometimes it’s just texting, but sometimes he’ll call him, and Tony will tell Peter all about the projects he’s doing in his lab, and how he and Colonel Rhodes tried to teach Vision how to play basketball and Vision kept flying up to the hoop.

“I miss him,” Peter says quietly, one particularly bad night.

“I know, kid,” Tony says. From anyone else, that might sound condescending, but instead it’s just sympathetic. Peter thinks of Tony’s parents as he stares up at the cracking paint on the ceiling, and he thinks,  _ you keep going.  _ It’s not quite as depressing a thought as it once was.

Tony only calls Peter in the middle of the night once. It’s two am on a Thursday when Peter answers the phone, his heart pounding as he wonders if someone’s attacking. “Mr. Stark?” he asks, half breathless. “Is something wrong?” 

For a long moment, there is nothing on the other end but ragged breathing.

“Sorry,” Tony says finally, his voice hoarse. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to to wake you.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says. “I was up practicing for a Spanish speech anyway.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks, voice still rough. “You know, I speak Spanish. I could help.”

Peter swallows. “Um,” he says, because that was a complete lie, his Spanish presentation isn’t until next month and he wasn’t up practicing for anything. “Right, okay, um -  _ Soy  _ Peter,  _ y tu deberías comprar mi producto porque -” _

Peter spends the next ten minute bullshitting his way through the nonexistent presentation before Tony finally clears his throat, and Peter pauses.   


“Thanks, kid,” Tony says, and Peter doesn’t ask what for, just brushes it off with a comment about how maybe this would start to set them even for all the times Peter’s called Tony in the middle of the night, even though Peter knows they will never be even, knows that he will always be in debt to Tony Stark, for his life, for his safety, for everything.

-

Peter’s eating dinner with Aunt May when his alarm goes off; he jolts, startled, when it starts buzzing against his thigh, then jolts again, with a much higher spike of adrenaline, when he realizes it’s a level four alert.

“May,” he says, and he must look desperate enough because she just sighs, cups his face and presses a kiss to his forehead, and says, “Be  _ safe.” _

Five minutes later, he’s swinging across the 59th Street Bridge. He flicks his comm on. “Spiderman, checking in,” he says, then barely manages to duck under a random pigeon that’s appeared out of nowhere.

“Spiderman, we’ve got a situation down by Battery Park. Hostiles have approached by boat, are advancing on civilians. They’re believed to be associated with HYDRA.”

The voice is not one Peter recognizes, but he confirms and changes direction accordingly. “Backup?” 

“Iron Man is on his way from the Compound, and War Machine -“

“Is unavailable.” Tony’s voice is clear across the comms, no signs of stress or concern. “Spiderman, this is Agent Hill. You haven’t met her yet. She’s terrifying.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Agent Hill deadpans.

“So we have any idea what they’re doing here?” Tony asks, as Peter swings past the Brooklyn Bridge. “Not that HYDRA minions can’t just hate America. But they usually have a larger plan than just bursting into Battery Park with a bunch of guns.”

There’s a pause. “We believe they may be attempting a repeat of 2014,” Hill says slowly. It takes Peter a long moment to process, a long moment during which the comms are silent.

“Do you mean - the helicarriers? But you can’t, those were -“

“They were all taken down,” Tony says tersely. “ _ Weren’t  _ they?”

The silence is telling.

“There was one more in construction,” she says finally. “We believed progress was sufficiently slow that HYDRA was unable to salvage it.”

“ _ Believed,”  _ Tony sneers. “FRIDAY, start scanning for evidence of a Helicarrier,” he says, but Peter loses her response as he swings to a stop in front of the SeaGlass Carousel, and five black-clad soldiers catch sight of him.

“Hail HYDRA!” one yells, and then they’re running at him, hefting guns that send Peter flipping into the trees for cover.

He takes them out relatively easily, a couple of taser webs to the back of the head enough to knock them out. “Definitely HYDRA,” Peter confirms when he’s done, breathing hard.

“I’m two minutes out,” Tony says, and Hill adds, “Government reinforcements are incoming, you just need to hold the park until they get there. Try to facilitate civilian evac.”

“You got it,” Peter says, then swings over towards the old castle in the middle of the park, where a group of tourists seems to be hiding.

“Hey, is there anybody in here - oh  _ shit,”  _ Peter curses, flattening himself on the castle turret to avoid being shot by -

A tourist. Wearing a cowboy hat. With a gun in their shaking hair.

“Hey!” Peter exclaims, frowning down at the man, who’s gone pale. “I’m just trying to help, you know. Maybe be a little less trigger-happy next time? This is why we need gun control in this country.”

“Who the hell are  _ you -“  _ the man sputters, but before he can finish, or Peter can dignity that with an answer, a group of HYDRA agents appears in the entrance of the castle, and Peter has to pause the conversation to web them up.

“Great,” he says when he’s finished, brushing his hands together. “Now that that’s covered, anyone interested in getting the hell out of here?”

Everyone’s hands go up.

Peter manages to get almost all of them safely out of the park and into the buildings across the street by the time Iron Man shows up. “Hey, kid,” he says when he spots Peter, tipping him a salute. It’s strange, the robotic voice mixing with Tony’s voice in his ear. “How’re things looking?”

“Good!” Peter calls, then remembers the comm, and lowers his voice. “There’s a few more people in the castle, I’ll try to get them out, but otherwise -“

“There are civilians on the North side of the park,” Hill interrupts, “by the Jewish Heritage museum. A faction of HYDRA agents has taken - offense, to its presence.”

Peter knows he can’t see Tony’s face, but he swears he can almost feel his scowl. “Aye-aye, Morticia,” he says, and then he’s off.

Peter manages to get the rest of the hostiles out of the castle, and takes down a few HYDRA agents by the WW2 Memorial, though it gets busted up in the process.  _ Oh well,  _ Peter thinks, as he ducks behind a slab of stone. He can’t imagine the soldiers would have any real objections.

Halfway through the shoot out, Tony reappears and takes down the rest of the HYDRA agents, not even bothering to repulsor them, just body slamming straight through them, like they’re bowling pins and he’s the ball.

“You know, I still don’t get why none of the other Avengers had one of those,” Peter says as Tony come to rest next to him. The faceplate is expressionless but Peter can practically see Tony’s raised eyebrows. “I mean, I get you said, like, tech is dangerous in other hands, blah blah blah - but, come on, can you imagine how much more badass the Black Widow would be in an Iron Man suit?”

“Well, at the very least she’d get shot less,” Tony says mildly. “But it never really came up. Other than Rhodey, nobody’s ever wanted one before.”

Peter makes an incredulous face. “Who wouldn’t want an  _ Iron Man  _ suit?”

“We got incoming,” Hill interrupts before Tony can respond. “Looks like some agents are headed for the St Elizabeth Shrine on State, we’ve issued remote orders to evacuate but we could use some people -”

“On it,” Tony says, and lifts off into the air.

“Spiderman, we could use you at the Ferry Terminal, there’s an incoming ferry that’s been taken over by hostiles, police have been unable to infiltrate the ship. We need you to -”

She’s cut off by a sudden explosion that rocks the nearby area, sending Peter into a crouch, hands over his ears. By the time the ringing has subsided, he’s registered what’s happened, and starts sprinting towards the Shrine, which is now nothing more than a flaming husk.

“Mr. Stark!” he yells, “Mr. Stark, are you okay?"

“Fine, kid, stop yelling,” Tony says into his ear. “Just a little singed. Building was evacuated, I’m heading to the helicopter pad, Fry’s got HYDRA incoming.”

Peter barely has time to breathe a sigh of relief before Hill is ordering, “Let’s move, then, Parker, there’s a police boat waiting to take you out on the water.”

Peter makes small talk with the police officers in the boat. “It’s - just great weather we’re having,” he says, “don’t you think?” They stare at him, stony faced. “I mean, it’ll be great for Pride this weekend.”

“Shut up, kid,” Tony says in his ear, but it sounds more amused than exasperated. Peter grins.

On the ferry, Hill taps his video feed so she can supplement Karen’s instructions on where to go. It makes everything a lot easier, and Peter manages to take out enough of the hostiles that the Coast Guard has started to cautiously approach, police boats bobbing around it in the choppy water, all of them waiting for the captives Peter will evacuate.

Of course it’s just as Peter is starting to feel optimistic about the fight that Hill goes silent mid-sentence. Peter pauses, curling behind a thick pole in case there’s someone nearby. “Hill?” he whispers, and then, when he receives no response, a little louder: “Agent Hill?”

The silence is long, and heavy. When Hill finally breaks it, it’s with a sigh that makes Peter’s stomach twist.

“We’ve located the Helicarrier,” she says. Her voice is strangely empty, so devoid of emotion that it’s almost mechanical. “It’s coming towards Manhattan. ETA in two minutes.”

Tony curses.

“I’m guessing detonation from outside won’t be possible,” he says finally, sounding tired even over the coms.

“Negative, Iron Man,” Hill says. Peter feels something tighten inside his chest.

“You can’t be saying there’s no options, right?” Peter says, somewhat hysterically. There’s silence on the other end of the line. “You can’t honestly be saying that?”

“No,” Hill says, after another long moment. “That’s not what we’re saying.”

For a moment, Peter is relieved, but it doesn’t last long. “Why aren’t you saying anything, then?” he asks, and the silence is answer enough. “Iron Man?” he asks, and then, after another moment, feeling very small, “Mr. Stark?”

“Kid,” Tony says, voice worn and crackling over the comms, “I’m sorry,” and his repulsors are so loud in the background, why are they so loud? It’s not until Tony has landed behind him that Peter realizes he’s here, and he spins around, dread sinking like a hot coal in his belly.

“What do you mean you’re sorry?”

Tony sighs. Tony’s faceplate is down, so Peter can’t see his face, and he hates that, so much it makes him want to scream. “I’m sorry to leave it like this,” he says, “but someone has to get inside,” and Peter thinks this must be some sort of dream, some sort of nightmare, because this can’t be happening again, not another one, not -

He’s arguing before he decides to do so. “It doesn’t have to be you, Mr. Stark, drop me off instead, I’ll do it, you can give me the specs -“

“Kid, no, what -“

“Please, Mr. Stark, if you just take me up there, I promise I can -”

“I’m not taking you anywhere -“

“But Mr. Stark, I can  _ help!”  _ Peter explodes. “I can end this, you know I can!”

Tony flips up his faceplate, reaching out to put his gauntleted hand on Peter’s shoulder, and that’s when Peter knows he’s serious.

“Peter,” Tony says firmly, the laugh-lines around his eyes furrowing into something grave, “You are not going to end anything, because you are not going to die here. Not today, not on a ferry outside Staten Island. You’re too good for that. Stay low, evacuate the civilians. If they start to overpower you, you  _ run.  _ Hear me? I’ve got this.”

And then the faceplate is snapping closed, and Iron Man is turning his head towards the sky, to the flat disc of the Helicarrier, emerging from the clouds almost exactly where the Chitauri portal hung.

Peter darts out a hand and grabs Tony’s wrist before he can take off. “The world needs Iron Man,” Peter says.  _ I need Iron Man.  _ “It needs Iron Man a lot more than it’ll ever need Spiderman.”

Tony sighs, the sound soft over the comms. “I don’t care about what the world needs,” he says. “I care about you.”

And then he’s gone, the hot blast of the repulsors like warm sunshine in his wake, like wind flying in a broken window, like Uncle Ben’s last shuddering breath.

Another member of Peter’s family pulled from him like blood from a wound.

Something hard and thin settles over Peter’s heart.

“Would you like to see the optimal rescue route to prevent casualties?” Karen asks helpfully. A green path unfurls on his HUD, the shell-shocked civilians outlined in bold. Peter swallows hard, fingers curling at his side.

“Karen, how is the Mark: Spiderling?”

“You’re not supposed to know about that,” Karen says disapprovingly. Peter waits; eventually she sighs. “Completed,” she says. 

“Deploy it,” Peter says. “Send it to me. I’ll only need it for a few minutes. Once I’m done, use it to complete the civilian rescue.”

“Peter,” Karen says, sounding all the part of a concerned mother. “If I run the suit, I won’t be able to assist you. Additionally, Mr. Stark is more experienced in these battles than yourself. If he asked you to stay back-“

“Override code: UNDEROOS,” Peter says, and Karen quiets. “Deploy the Spiderling. When I’m done, just follow the path you would have given me. Coordinate with FRIDAY and what’s left of the Iron Legion.” Before Peter, the destruction of the city is laid out like a roadmap - burning cars, bloody footprints, the air thick with plaster dust. 

“I have to at least try, Karen.”

There is a pause as Karen thinks.

“You do not need to do this,” she says finally, “but you believe you do.”

_ And isn’t that the same thing? _

Peter takes a deep breath, the hammering of his heart like a freight train racing down the tracks. He sees the Spiderling soaring towards him, black and red and decisive. “Wish me luck, then,” he says, “and if anything happens, tell Aunt May I’m sorry.”

Karen doesn’t reply, but Peter likes to think she heard him, anyway.

When the Spiderling gets close enough, Peter turns his gaze skyward, and leaps.

The armor catches him.

-

_ (Penis Parker,  _ Flash had taunted,  _ Penis Parker, know-it-all Parker, parent-less Parker - are you sure your parents are even dead? Because if you were my kid, I wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of sticking around. _

_ Probably because you’re a shit person, Flash,  _ Peter had said, and the bruises on his back from getting shoved into his locker were nothing compared to the stone that had sunk in Peter’s stomach at Flash’s words, a stone that stuck around for weeks and weeks, months and months, years, a stone that never really faded - not until Tony came, and put his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and gave him a suit, and a scholarship, an internship, protection, not until Tony came and  _ chose  _ him, chose not just Spiderman but Peter Parker, Peter Parker and his nerdy t-shirt collection, Peter Parker and his Star Wars obsession, Peter Parker and his deep, burning desire to one day be half the man Tony Stark was.)

\- 

The Spiderling drops him off on the hull of the ship, near a shattered glass window just about big enough to fit the Iron Man armor.

Peter falls from his suit gracelessly; he has not had Tony’s practice. He catches himself on the frame of the window, then turns to give the closing suit a smile. “Remember, civilian evac,” he says. Karen doesn’t reply other than to activate the thrusters, and the suit shoots off, arcing through the sky like an arrow.

“Ok,” Peter says to himself, turning back to the plane, “where to now?”

For once, Karen does not offer any helpful suggestions in his ear. “Right,” he says. “Alone on this one.”

Well. Not alone. He’s with Tony. He just has to find him. 

He starts making his way towards what he imagines to be the center of the ship. Having not seen the specs, it’s hard to know for sure - the ship is large and sprawling, filled with spiderwebbing hallways and what feels like a doorway every few feet. Peter activates stealth mode on his suit, and sticks to the walls, pressing himself almost flat. Twice, he has to lean back and not breathe for a few moments as a HYDRA agent rushes by in the hallway; another time, he has to leap onto the ceiling at the last second, as a mob of heavily armed soldiers come sprinting down the halls.

Peter moves quickly but carefully, checking around corners before he passes them. He figures Tony picked his entry point strategically, since he knows the Helicarrier so well, so he figures he can’t be too far from the room. He walks in a circle on accident, finding himself back at the starting point, so he takes another route, and eventually, after what feels like an eternity of creeping around this understaffed ghost ship, he spots a door with a broken keypad.

Carefully, Peter slides the door open, and there is Tony.

He’s in the Iron Man armor, helmet off, bent over something, but as soon as he hears the door open, he turns, repulsor raised. Peter ducks, but Tony doesn’t fire, stopping just in time with a strangled, “What the  _ fuck,  _ Peter?”

“Come on,” Peter says, squaring his shoulders. “Did you really think I was going to leave you to do this alone?” 

Tony’s eyes narrow. Peter can read the fury in them, the protectiveness, the fear. The desperation.

“Peter, you have to get out of here  _ right now.” _

“It’s too late for that,” Peter says, and he doesn’t have data to support it, but he knows it’s true. The ship feels alive beneath them, soldiers rushing everywhere, and Tony’s almost into the system; there is no time for evac. “You’re burning time; the second you plug that into the mainframe, they’ll know you’re here, and they’re going to come for you. You need backup.”

“No,” Tony says, abandoning the console and charging towards Peter, “I need to  _ get you out of here,  _ what the  _ fuck _ are you  _ thinking _ -“

“I was thinking that you don’t deserve to do this alone!” Peter shouts and Tony quiets, expression broken. Peter clears his throat, trying to swallow down his shakiness. “I can help,” he says. 

“Peter,” Tony starts, and then stops, something creaking in his tone. Tony’s eyes look glossy; Peter ignores it.

“Now,” Peter says, swallowing, “you’re burning time. We’ve only got so long before this hits land. What do you want me to do?”

Tony seems to make a decision. “Help me with this circuitry,” he says roughly, turning back to the control panel. “I need more hands to get this done in time.”

“Got it,” Peter says, stepping up beside Tony. “Here,” Tony says, and Peter picks up the wire, holds it in place while Tony types, rapid-fire, rapid like everything in his life, like his repulsors and Peter’s web-spinners and the shaking of Peter’s knees.

When the door does burst open, Peter shoots a web on instinct, but it’s not a HYDRA operative or a soldier but the Spiderling suit, singed on one side and scraped on the other, but intact. It moves fast, soaring at Peter and wrapping him up before he comprehends what’s happening.

“What,” he says, “what -“ and then he catches a glimpse of Tony’s expression out of the corner of his eye -  _ relief,  _ pure relief, so much his hands are shaking with it. Peter barely has long enough to feel completely and utterly betrayed before the suit is whisking him out and through the hallways, with no regard for stealth or quietness, drawing attention to Tony, Peter is sure, attention to the control room and Tony’s hacking, and, and -

“Karen,” he says, “Karen, stop, give me control, override code: UNDEROOS,” and Karen says, “Code rejected,” and Peter wants to scream, and he wants to cry, and he wants to  _ do something,  _ as the suit whisks him away, down, away from the Helicarrier, which has changed it’s direction, which is soaring towards the ocean now, and Peter knows Tony has done it, has hacked the mainframe, and Peter thinks,  _ no, no, not Tony,  _ says it aloud within his suit, as he watches the Helicarrier, a moment before impact, explode into a ball of yellow flame.

“No,” he says.  _ Tony.  _ Suddenly he remembers the safety Tony showed him, the releases on the Iron Man suits, and he reaches down to tug. The whole thing jerks open in one creaky move and he falls into the ocean, landing with a splash.

He shoots straight towards the Helicarrier, swimming as fast as he can. “Karen,” he tries to say, but he’s underwater, he can’t speak, and he’s searching for some sort of light, something to indicate where the arc reactor is, except he can’t find it, can’t find anything, in this dim light.  _ Nightlight,  _ he remembers, and whispers it, and somehow Karen hears him, because it flickers on, the lamprey shadow it provides just enough, for him to spot the gold glimmering in the deep.

Peter hoists the suit by the underarms, the metal slippery like seaweed under the water; as Peter pulls it loose from the rubble, he realizes the arc reactor is broken and grey, and the arms and legs and torso of the suit are cracked through, making leaks through which the water would have rushed the moment Tony made impact.

Peter surfaces with a gasp, the fuzzy edges of his vision sharpening, and swims to the shore as fast as he can. He almost drops Tony when pulling him over the guardrail, then has to fumble with the suit catches three times before it pops open with a gush of sewage-water. Inside the suit, Tony is pale and limp and vaguely green, his lips sealed shut, his eyelashes stuck to his cheeks with water.

“No,” Peter says, “No, no, no,” and he rips his mask off to start CPR, steady beats: one, two, three, four, thinking,  _ no, no, no, Tony. Please. _

Time stretches like a long country road, like a stream of water in the wilderness, like Peter’s bones, unbroken.

_ Please. _

Tony comes to with a shudder and a cough, like a zombie raised from the dead, rolling over on his side to vomit up green seawater. 

“Jesus,” Tony manages around coughs, “Jesus Christ,” and rolls onto his back so he’s facing Peter. “Please tell me you didn’t kiss me,” he says, and it’s sincere but there’s no bite to it, just something sharp and proud in his expression, and Peter feels a helpless smile breaking out on his face. “Because that would be weird,” Tony adds, “so fucking weird, like incestuous, and also illegal, oh my god,” and Peter can’t help it - he’s laughing, eyes closed and belly aching in a sharp and jumping way, and there’s a lump in his throat and he doesn’t know why it’s there, and he’s dripping water, and somewhere there are probably still HYDRA agents killing people, and he doesn’t -

“Kid,” Tony says, and Peter leans forward before Tony can stop him and wraps his arms around Tony’s waist, tucking his face into Tony’s neck.

Tony’s hand comes up to rest on his back. “Kid,” he says again, but Peter just shakes his head into Tony’s shoulder. For a long moment, they stay there, Tony slowly stroking Peter’s back, Peter breathing deep.

“Thank you,” Peter says finally, “for not dying.” He swallows, but when he speaks, his voice is wobbly. “I couldn’t - I couldn’t lose another -”

“Oh,  _ kid,”  _ Tony says softly, but Peter forces himself to move back before he can do anything else embarrassing, like start crying on Tony’s shoulder.

“Anyway,” he says thickly, “You should get to medical.”

“Hey, I’m the adult here, remember?” Tony says, but there’s no reprimand in the tone at all, almost like he’s reminding himself of it, too. 

“Right,” Peter says, and he could make a joke here, about how he just pulled Tony from the wreckage, he’s pretty responsible, except that makes him think about the suit closing around him in the Helicarrier, the way Tony’s shoulders had relaxed as Karen had steered Peter away from the wreckage, even though he had to have known that ruined any of his chances of getting out, even though he had to have  _ known  _ he was signing his death warrant. 

And, well. Peter can’t think of much more parental than that.

“Excuse me, Boss,” someone says, and Peter startles when he realizes that the Spiderling suit has landed beside them, and FRIDAY is speaking through it. “Agent Hill would like me to report that the hostiles have been contained. She is asking about your location.”

“Tell her we’re by the docks,” Tony says, “and if she could send a car, that’d be much appreciated.”

“An ambulance,” Peter amends quickly. Tony shoots him a look. “You need medical,” Peter says, and he doesn’t miss how Tony looks him up and down before agreeing. 

“Well, shortcake,” Tony says, reaching out a hand towards Peter. “Gonna help me up?”

And Peter reaches down to haul him to his feet.

-

It’s surprisingly cool, for April. It had rained last night, and now everything is damp and grey and cool to the touch, waiting for something to warm it.

The graveyard is quiet.

“Hey, Uncle Ben,” Peter says to the air. He swallows hard, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I know it’s been a while since I visited, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just been -“ He huffs. “Busy. Really busy.”

He glances behind him, where the sleek black car is waiting. Tony is leaning against the side of it, sunglasses on, phone in hand, but he doesn’t seem impatient. He’d told Peter as much when they pulled up -  _ you take all the time you need, kid, seriously, I’ve got nowhere else to be today but a board meaning, and Heimdall knows I’ll take any excuse I can to get out of those. _

“Aunt May asked me to tell you she’s sorry she’s not here. She’s on a business trip, actually - some cool stuff going I don’t want to spoil. I’m sure she’ll tell you herself.” Peter pauses. “There’s a lot of things I should tell you myself, really. But, I, um - I think the important thing is that I’m doing good. I’m doing real good, I’m, um - I’m happy.” Peter takes a breath, looking up at the sky. “There’s a girl I’m interested in, and I think she might like me too. And Ned is good, and New York is intact, and, um -“

Peter glances towards the car again. Tony’s still there, unmoving.

“I know you always used to worry about me,” Peter says, “and I know you’re probably still worrying about me. But I just want to let you know that you don’t need to anymore. I’ve got people looking out for me. I, uh -“ He swallows hard. “Yeah. I think, all things considered, I’m gonna be okay.”

Somewhere in the distance, a car honks its horn, and Peter coughs, the moment broken. “Um. I miss you. I love you. I can’t wait to see you again. But I’m, uh, I’m doing good, like I said, and so is Aunt May, I think.” Peter presses his fingers to his lips, then to the tombstone. “I’ll come back soon, Uncle Ben,” he says, and then he turns and heads back towards the car, shoes sinking silently into the soil.

“You ready to go already?” Tony asks when Peter pauses in front of him. He takes off his sunglasses, props them on his head. “We can stay longer if you’d like.”

Peter looks back at the smooth granite of Uncle Ben’s headstone. There’s a robin perched on top of it.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Peter smiles. Tony reaches out and rests a hand on his shoulder. It suddenly doesn’t feel quite as cold. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> I committed to this back in November, before my life became a raging hot mess. Various things in the month of January- including a sick friend, a new job, and an 18-credit courseload- combined into me having no fucking time. So this is significantly less polished than I had once hoped it would be, and unfortunately unbetaed, even though the poor person who was going to read it over for me tried valiantly to get our google drives working. But oh well! You keep going and you post it anyway, I suppose - so here it is. If you notice any grammatical errors/word swaps/bigger issues with the fic, PLEASE comment and point them out! I will be happy to fix them as best as I'm able (just as soon as I get five minutes).
> 
> Thanks a million to the mod for organizing this!


End file.
